Elections
by Ersatz Einstein
Summary: How America feels about elections every four years. (Note: I don't mean any part of this as a commentary on other countries or any particular election that I haven't explicitly referenced.) Humor/angst because... well, how else are we supposed to feel about the electoral process?


Elections! America loved them with a childish love that he'd never quite outgrown. They were loud and noisy and stupid, but he couldn't resist the tingly feeling that ran up and down his body while they were going on. It made him feel like a young country again, anxiously awaiting the results in 1824. Or how about even further back, when he hadn't even had clear rules for who got to be Vice President?

Of course, older, more conservative countries had eased their way into the electoral process like old men slowly dipping their toes in the water. They'd gotten used to it in the end, though, and could swim as quickly and as furiously as any nascent nation.

England still kept a royal family, and he would tell anyone who cared to listen that the large, absurd shows that were modern elections were entirely undignified. Yes, his government was elected, but at least his people could be civil about it. (Ever since America had noticed his former guardian walking with a certain… _spring_ in his step during the 1802 general election, he'd been inclined to ignore that particular complaint.)

The real problem was, what with the restless tapping and the excited (if entirely wasted) attention paid to pundits and entrance polls and the loud yelling in the streets and the flashy slogans and the rest of it, America had an _impossible _time focusing on anything else during the election season. Even his current boss (what was his name?) couldn't distract him from his boss-to-be.

The splits (geographical, political, and manufactured by Gerrymanderers) in the populace, the tantalizing possibility of new scandals and new shifts in policy platforms, the increasingly insane cries of proponents of both candidates (because of course nobody paid attention to the tiny third parties) – all gave him the sensation of jittery, irritable, excited (if deceptive) motion one normally associates with too many cups of coffee.

He knew that, aside from the absurdity of the media frenzy, there were plenty of reasons not to look forward to election season. The two-dimensional positions encouraged would temporarily drown all rational thought. Other, more important stories would be shunted. The campaign, not unlike the Christmas season, would extend past the point at which any rational person would leave it. (After all, which was more ridiculous: Christmas trees on November 1st, or 2016 predictions in 2012?)

Furthermore, electoral arguments had an alarming tendency to become real ones. He remembered all too well the crash that had come when the excitement of 1824's contentious struggle had turned to the anger of a populace that believed itself cheated. (Worse still, the anger twelve years later when they were cheated, but not by who they blamed at the time.)

He guessed they really were like coffee, then. No, not coffee. Coffee had benefits that outweighed its more-or-less negligible risks.

Alcohol. That was it. That was the comparison he was looking for. They made him happy, they made him forget the world's problems, but they did things to him. Day by day, he felt himself growing more polarized, more aggressive, more angry. He knew that they were (at least in part) the cause, but that really wasn't going to change anything.  
That buzz, that brief sense of being able to steer everything in the world your way – that was irresistible.

Now as he sat in the White House, waiting for the results to come in and his new boss to arrive, he wondered whether he'd ever be able to quit. The rush was dying down. A minute more, and he'd be fretting over the demands of one new boss or another, certain that they'd either be impossible or insane.

"Hey!" someone yelled. "That's the last district! He's won!"

Won? After two years of pointless speculation and campaigning, somebody had won? Funny, America had lost track of who was in the lead. He watched solemnly as the statistics appeared on the screen. His right hand held a glass of brandy whose ice cubes had melted an hour ago. He raised his glass, murmuring a toast to the next president of the United States.

The golden liquid ran down his throat and he suddenly felt energized. A new president. Hope, new beginnings. Life. This president would do it all. He knew it. The post election coverage was coming onscreen, but he turned it off in favor of bed.  
Elections! America loved them.


End file.
